Cute and so true!!!

I have never thought it was cute or funny to encourage bad behavior. Children should be taught that taking something that doesn't belong to them is called stealing. That is why my family practices what we call the twenty four hour rule. I have three children, all close in age, and they can keep any toy that is given to them as a gift or purchased with their own money for 24 hours. Once the twenty four hours has passed it becomes community property and can be played with by anyone at any time. After that time the children aren't allowed to say "that's mine!"

This is hilarious and so true. I do agree with Lisa that children need to be schooled on what is "mine" and what is "yours", but there seems to come a time when self-awareness and the understanding of possession leads to the "Mine! Stage" in every child. Gone unchecked, however, it can get bad.

We hosted house guests who have a 2-year old in the throws of the "Mine! Stage." Since they were travelling by plane, they brought very few toys of their own and so played with my sons toys for the most part. My son was only one at the time, and did not yet understand the concept of "yours" and "mine" so he willingly allowed toys to be snatched out of his hands by our guests' son.

Becuase of his naivety, it was bearable for the first few days. But as the snatching and "mine!" comments continued virtually un-corrected by the partents, my blood pressure went higher and higher. It was all I could do to not yell "No, actually these toys are ALL MINE, you little &%!#+"

I ended up keeping my cool. For one, I am sure I will be facing a possessive toddler in the next year and understand that its "just a stage". Second, I am practicing letting my son fight his own battles. But it was VERY difficult to stand by and watch the Laws of Toddler Property being perpetrated against my little one!

Commenter Lisa says that she has implemented a "twenty four hour rule" wherein private property becomes community property after 24 hours because, "Children should be taught that taking something that doesn't belong to them is called stealing." This is a complete non sequitur - I don't see how this rule addresses that problem in any way. In fact, it weakens a child's understanding that things belong to other people because that is only true for 24 hours.

The rule also seems to be deliberately designed to promote the "tragedy of the commons" wherein people use up common resources at a more rapid rate than they would use up their own private resources, and generally don't take as much care with community property as they take with their own property. Even though children are not particularly renowned for taking good care of their own belongings, I suspect the condition of belongings deteriorates much more quickly under this "twenty four hour rule" as compared to the condition of belongings that actually belong to a child indefinitely.